Wednesday, September 30, 2009

I said I'd get back to Twisty (I know she's Jill now, but it's so much catchier!) and I am. Her next post addresses female dominance, and why it's exactly the same as female submission. Somehow.

What maidden refers to as “the opposite situation” isn’t opposite at all. Any practice that furthers the interests of patriarchal oppression, regardless of the sex, gender, race, diet, type of refrigerator, underwear, or political affiliation of the practitioner, is crappy and antifeminist. This includes sexay domination practiced by women; these behaviors are dictated by male fetish. As are all feminine behaviors.These are, I'm guessing, the words of someone who doesn't know any female dominants. Read any couple posts in Bitchy Jones' blog; does she come off as a woman who only dominates on a "honey, could you please put on the leather corset tonight?" The woman's not just a dominant but a sadist, in that sorta scary oh-jeez-she's-not kidding way that not all dominants are, and although she certainly satisfies certain male fetishes, I can guarantee you she wasn't created by them.

I wonder, why doesn't this reverse? Why is the situation where a man is pressured into BDSM (in either role) by a woman not considered? If a man's behavior is being dictated by female fetish, is he still somehow secretly in charge?

And that last sentence. I realize she said "feminine" behaviors and not "female," but still, Jesus. Apparently all of women's culture, everything passed down from mother to daughter, from family traditions to fashion secrets, is really men's culture. And since men's culture is obviously men's culture, and shared culture is unthinkable of course, we've got nothing. Women have been part of civilization umpty-thousand years and created no legacy whatsoever. Maybe we are dull and weak-willed after all.

"Is it down to a choice between lesbianism and asexuality?"Not even lesbians and asexuals are 100% patriarchy-free. Its ubiquity, see, is what makes patriarchy the dominant paradigm.Okay, so my question is, if everyone is all patriarched up, why pick on heterosexuals/kinksters/homemakers/etc in particular? If patriarchy is the Original Sin in every human soul, why come down on sexuality and femininity like they were the enemies?

Sadly, I fear that many readers are reluctant to fully embrace the horrific truth that patriarchy isn’t just some abstract academic conceit. The don’t wanna face that they themselves, as members of an honest-to-fuck sex class, are well and truly screwed.Screwed. What does that mean? I'm gonna die? I'm gonna be beat up? I'm gonna lose my job? When I say I'm "screwed" it means a bad thing will happen to me soon. The condition of "this entirely theoretical label which is applied to you by definition, will continue to apply to you" is hardly "screwed."

Anyway, if I'm screwed either way I might as well have awesome sex while I'm at it.

That was a short post, covered no new ground ("people don't really want what they say they want," yawwwwn--still shockingly psychopathic, but you know, same old psychopathy) and I still have ire to burn, so let's do the comments!Realizing that patriarchy is real, and is the “matrix” in which every single action of every group and individual takes place–in the bedroom or out, is sickening, but also can be freeing.Not freeing from responsibility to try to make change and to live a life according to one’s moral code, but freeing from that sense of “I’m doing everything “right”, why 1. can’t I reach my goals, 2. do I feel so awful all the time, 3. don’t people’s actions correspond to what they’re saying, 4. etc.”Actually, you might just be a loser. I have it on excellent authority that there are happy women on Earth, at least inasmuch as there are happy people. I'm twenty-three and I've already lived some goals I thought I'd never reach, and on the balance I don't feel awful most days. Sure, I got harassed at the ambulance company--but I also get to drive an ambulance every day, and whine as I may, I love that. And the patriarchy didn't keep me from it.

maidden, it’s okay if you “prefer” to go blissfully back into the Matrix and “enjoy” your artificial steak. The P tells you that it’s juicy and delicious. Eat up. But please don’t pretend that’s truly “living”.I always thought Cypher had a point, actually. When you get released from the Matrix you pretty much eat bacteria mush and live in a crappy little cave. Your experiences in the Matrix may not be "authentic" in the sense of physical reality, but they are authentically experiences and your enjoyment of that steak is just as enjoy-y.

I don't know what any of this has to do with having a morally correct sex life. If male-dominant sex isn't "really" sex... I think maybe I wouldn't like real sex.

Count me in for the Feminist Revolt! Maybe the BDSMers can bring weapons.We can. A lot of them. We know how to use them. Which side do you want us on? Think carefully.

Start where you can: don’t stand in the middle of the grocery store saying “What kind of cheese does he like?” (if you have a Nigel). Get what you like. If other people don’t like your choices they can do the work and make *their* choices. But the situation would be exactly the same if you were shopping for a woman! That's not feminist, that's self-centered. And it misses the point of what a "Nigel" is supposed to be. A partner, ideally, should be someone you want to make happy, not because they're male but because they're part of your life and you value them. I don't buy him cheese because I'm cowed; I buy it because his cheese-joy is my cheese-joy, and his cheese-sorrow my cheese-sorrow.

Won’t we continue to be “women” even if we remove “men” from the equation? Because no matter how much I am able to intellectually recognize the moral depravity, dangers, and illusion of the gender binary, I still call myself a woman and still self-define as woman, and am a woman. Even if I can imagine myself existing in a world in which “woman” isn’t even a word, because the concept of dividing humans into categories based on silly, not-even-universal traits is incomprehensible (because in this imaginary world, gender does not exist)? Gender, for me, will always exist. So I can never live in a post-patriarchal world.That's true. But maybe someday you can live in a world of physical safety, of material abundance, of spiritual awareness and intellectual freedom. And even if that world still has dudes and ladies I still think it would be pretty nice.

I was out on my motorbike a while back, and was having trouble getting it started after I stopped for gas. A no-doubt well-meaning man came over and ‘helped’ by which I meant got in the way and offered unsolicited advice. And do you know what I did? I said ‘oh thank you’ and smiled at him gratefully as he ineffectively futzed with the bike, and listened to him pontificate, and talked to him in a nice voice, and reassured him that I’d be fine, etc. Do you know what I wish I’d done? I wish I’d said in a firm curt voice, thank you for offering to help but I understand this bike and you don’t, and I’d like you to go away please. Because I’ve been trained to respond to men in the former way rather than in the latter way, and in the back of my mind I was thinking ‘what if my response to him makes him angry?’ and that made me afraid. [...] If something like that happens again, I may, despite wishing I wouldn’t, respond in exactly the same way, because the penalty for not responding gender-correctly is ‘bitch’ or worse, and I’m very vulnerable on a bike.No. You, individually, were a weenie, and you need to own up to it, because right now you're still being a weenie by blaming the world. Plenty of women have turned down unwanted help from plenty of men. You can become stronger if you try, and looking down at your vagina and going "no, I can't possibly, everyone's against me" is the action of a coward, not a woman.

But the joke is on the superstrong submissives, because now, whenever you experience sexual pleasure, you get to experience fear and pain. Your body will bypass your conscious mind and someday you’ll jerk away from a soft touch as from a hot stove. Huh??? This does not actually happen to humans.

The best solution is to keep all fetuses female and then let children choose their own puberties depending on what physical traits they want to develop and when. Then if they want they can get a stem-cell penis attached when they turn 18 and pass a test to get their dicker’s license, subject to revocation by the state if convicted of misuse. Fascinating. And making maleness an earned privilege, with femaleness as a punishment, would definitely solve all our problems.

I’ve been told I’m sexist, a whinger, bitter, a fruit and nut job – you’ve heard them all before. You can see people’s eyes glaze over as soon as I open my mouth.Yeah, that's probably because you're such a beautiful rebel hero, the world just isn't ready for you.

Plus, If you participate in submission to patriarchal standards to keep sane and deal with it, then good. better to not burn out before the revolution. WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS "REVOLUTION" SERIOUSLY. Some of the commenters seem to use it as a shorthand for a gradual turnaround in the culture, and some of them seem to see it as a single catastrophic event. The first group probably aren't so different from me even if they use more dramatic terms; the second group are cuckoo crazypants. And the weirdest part about the crazypants faction is that they seem so uninterested in the pre-revolutionary world. All this noise about hating the patriarchy and this person comes out and says she's going to go along with it for her own convenience, never mind beliefs or progress. It's almost like the worst interpretations of dispensationalist Christianity--nothing before the Rapture matters, and everything afterwards will be perfect, so why bother to put your house in order?

Dang it all! I said “If it’s patriarchy…” I meant “When it’s patriarchy…”figleafI'm only quoting this comment because figleaf (who I've met, and he's a smart, insightful guy and as feminist as they come) is here correcting a previous comment... which is nowhere to be found. I guess he just wasn't feminist enough.

It's one thing to delete abuse and trolling, but Twisty prunes and cultivates her comment section like a carefully trimmed (not to mention deliberately stunted) bonsai of crazy. The outcome is to create the illusion of a very different discussion than the one her readers would like to actually have. What a safe space.

Before I even begin, I want to mention something: when I first became interested in BDSM, my boyfriend at the time was very vanilla and barely knew such things existed. He was game enough to slap me around a little on request, but it was definitely not his idea.

It is a myth that self-expression (on radical feminist blogs or elsewhere) is a health-giving antidote to mental and physical diseases precipitated by dangerous levels of pent-up creativity or opinions. Self-expression is merely a pop-psychology franchise that grants captive audiences to the self-absorbed.Boy don't it take one to know one.

[Also, I have no idea what this has to do with anything but she goes on for four paragraphs about it.]

When stating an opinion in the comments section of a radical feminist blog, it’s stupid to begin with the personal pronoun I. ... The truth is, you are boring. You exude ennui from every pore. Any sane reader would rather have root canal than subject herself to your moldy old first-person secretions. But, by expunging boring old you from the subject of your statement, you might stand half a chance of actually engaging in discourse that people give half a crap about.I don't see why this is the case. As a child of pop-psych, I was taught to speak in "I" statements, especially when I'm arguing. I believe it doesn't mean that I'm only talking about myself, but that I'm acknowledging my limitations--I only know what I know, so saying "this is my belief" is less hubristic than trying to say "this is the way it is." When I say "I don't see why," I admit that a statement could make sense (on Mars or something), but this reader sure can't make head nor tail.

Only through obedience can you know the freedom that is slavery! Only through discipline can you revel in the love that is hate! Only through appeasement of the oppressor can you experience the unfathomable mysteries of the great submissive gift of unconditional masochism!Well... yeah.

Also, I don't see how this is worse than conventional heterosexual sex. That also "appeases" the "oppressor," (while appeasing the shit out of me, if anyone cares) it's just more popular. If the goal is to deny men pleasure, you've got a lot more work to do.

For it takes great strength, Grasshopper, to order patent leather spandex French maid outfits off the internet so you can get off sucking up to some asshole who gets off on rape fantasies.Wait... I'm that asshole! They are my fantasies! MINE! I want these things to bring me joy! I don't know about great strength (although taking a beating takes quite a bit, don't knock it), but I know what I want, and I wanted these things before any man wanted them from me.

That was barely about BDSM. She only touched on it in two sentences. It was much more about "this may look like a blog with a comment section, but it's actually my personal fiefdom in which I decree the form and content of all opinions." Which, hey, it's technically feasible and not illegal, so I guess if she wants to delete everything that isn't virulently antisocial and composed in iambic pentameter, she can go have fun with that.

Oh, but that comment section. That's always the entertaining part. Let's get to that.

I think that when some people are writing blogs they should try to be a little less judgemental about how some people choose to write their personal opinions because certain people ought to know that a lot of people don’t have fancy spell checking computers because they might have spent all their fucking money on super CUTE!!! leather thingies and just because I have black bangs and look a little like Bettie Page doesn’t mean that others really ought to judge me just because I’m into the life style because I am imprinted that way OK? My spellchecker doesn't stop me from using the word "I," it must be a bug. My spellchecker also doesn't remind me to discount the opinions (and finances???) of people based on their hallucinated fashion choices. What a cheapass spellchecker.

...women like this exist to shit on things. ‘I actively try to be everything you hate!’ A nasty brand of narcissist – they get off on it. People like her are best ignored and were probably an only- child. They’re no different to anyone else and yet think they’re Gods.Boy don't it take one to know one. Anyway, when you hate so many things, it's hard for me not to be a few of them. And anyway when you go to your average BDSM gathering there isn't anyone present who doesn't approve, but I promise you we don't just play Heads-Up-Seven-Up and say "let's tell the radfems we were beating each other in here, they'll go nuts."

“My kinky former partner was my equal in every way”

Equal in every way except, I am obliged to suggest, insofar as you were a member of the sex class and he wasn’t, the only way that really matters.This is Twisty herself talking, and getting quite efficiently to the differences between her breed of feminism and mine. I'd rather have the best life I can have here and now, and be equal to my partner even if I can't be equal to all men. She doesn't seem to find anything worthy of hope in the current world order. And in doing so, she always manages to sound a bit sexist herself--saying that women are "sex class" even when no specific man is oppressing them makes it sound like the problem is with women themselves.

I always thought the problem was "a lot of men treat you like you're the sex class," but it's very different to say "you are the sex class."

BDSM is simply an extension, the progress down a continuum, that many of us already engage in everyday. If those Swiffer ads continue, we may all come to understand exactly how people are sexualized to certain abusive concepts, like the “erotic” experience of mopping the floor. Or the orgasmic joy of doing laundry. Ahh, the pleasures of unpaid mandated labor, why, it’s almost like foreplay already.I actually don't mind mopping the floor. If I didn't, the floor would be gross! I might resent doing it for a partner who doesn't pitch in, but I have no aspiration to never mop the floor.

Anyway, this doesn't fit with my observation that kinky women are rarely the most oppressed. It's not like BDSM clubs are full of migrant laborers and street hookers--it seems like middle and upper-middle class women, who are usually fairly powerful in their "real" lives, make up the majority of female submissives.

The properly empowerful response to external interrogations of one’s stated causes of personal empowerfulment is not justification through extended dialectic, personal anecdote, or terse “but I like it!” statements. Such responses indicate a distinct lack of empowerfulment, in fact.But I like it. I like it! I really, actually, from here to there with no reason, like it! I don't know what else to say! I'm throwing up my hands! I like what I like and I want it love it enjoy it desire it LIKE IT.

And that's what matters. Why is hitting women wrong in the first place? Because they don't like it.

Blame the fucking shitheads, the rapists, the willfully ignorant. Blame the motherfucking patriarchy and burn down the houses of those who sell it to us as “empowerment.”You'll be burning down a lot of women's houses.

Oh, for goodness’ sake. I’m just asking for an argument instead of just “BDSM is gross. And your writing sucks.” [...]

I am also asking for an argument against all het sex that amounts to more than “How can the oppressed give consent?” and perhaps takes account of reality. (Here’s where I would use my personal experiences to discuss how het relationships can be non-oppressive, if that were welcome. But it’s not, which means any attempt to make a properly supported and illustrated argument will, presumably, be met with hostility.)

If questions and discussion in a public forum are unsafe and unfriendly, then discourse is impossible. If you’re not looking for discourse, fine. But I’m just sayin’.This comment is just posted here for preservation before it gets deleted, I think it's awesome.

People should also understand that because BDSM often involves violence, pain, degradation, and/or use of force – in a sexual context – it is very likely to trigger extreme emotional responses from people who acutely feel the constant threat of sexual violence. That’s why a pro-BDSM stance – or even a “neutral” stance – can make a space feel unsafe for discussion, as Jonathan pointed out.If you're under the constant threat of sexual violence--like, for reals--you shouldn't be wasting time on some goddamn blog, you need to get the fuck out of there! Pack and leave when he's out of the house, don't let him know where you went, and don't be afraid to get the police involved! If you're living with threats of violence, insensitive blog comments are the least of your worries.

I don't know what sort of "discussion" can be had in a truly "safe space," then, but I assume it consists largely of "ooh, you're even more super awesomer than me... now tell me how awesome I am again."

The next post is on femdom, and how dominant women aren't really dominant because submissive men enjoy it, and that's terrible. I'll get to it tonight or tomorrow.

Tuesday, September 29, 2009

I used to work at a place where there was one client who was mentally competent but was extremely grabby with female caregivers and on at least one instance masturbated in front of one. (He once grabbed me by the back of the head and shoved me down towards his crotch, urggh. I was able to break free before making contact, but urggh.) Management's solution was to put a note in his chart: "MALE CAREGIVERS ONLY." Not "we will no longer be providing service to this person," and certainly not "we will be pursuing legal action," but just a simple accommodation of his little problem.

I was reminded of this yesterday when I went to HR to complain about a coworker who had been treating me extremely disrespectfully because--although I'm more than a year senior to him in the organization--I'm just a little girl. HR's response: "Hm, it sounds like he needs to work with a man." No, it sounds like he needs to work somewhere else, dammit. I know firing and hiring aren't as easy as all that, I understand where she's coming from, but it still pisses me off.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

Percentage of people I met on Craigslist for random sex who turned out to be crazy: ~20%. Most of them were simply fellow lonely souls looking for something convenient.

Percentage of people I met on Craigslist for minor household purchases who turned out to be crazy: ONE HUNDRED FUCKING PERCENT.

Seriously. I thought I'd sell my old futon for twenty-five bucks. So far I've been haggled down to twenty (whatever, I just want to get rid of it), requested to deliver to Boonieville, asked the most minute questions, asked to add accessories, and gone through three emails and two phone calls to confirm that my futon is properly futonly.

JESUS CHRIST. IT IS A BIG RECTANGULAR SOFT THING. IT IS CHEAP. IT DOES NOT SMELL BAD. BUY IT OR DON'T. I AM NOT YOUR PERSONAL FUTON SHOPPING ASSISTANT.

I realize that this has nothing to do with my sex blog really, it just happens every damn time and it drives me insane.

Wednesday, September 23, 2009

There's being deaf, and then there's being Deaf. Some people can't hear; some people can't hear and are part of a well-defined and somewhat insular community of capital-D Deaf folk. The Deaf people have all kinds of social conventions and institutions that the merely deaf don't.

So Wednesday's strained analogy is to kinkiness versus the kink community. Some people just like to play dominance and/or pain games with their partners; some people are part of The Kink Community. I'm somewhere in the middle; I know about the community and I've had many contacts with it but I don't think I'm really a part of it. I don't have a ton of kinky friends, I don't always get all the fiddly details of kink etiquette right, and I often do "bedroom play" rather than formal "scenes."

I suspect that there's a huuuuge number of non-community kinksters out there; after all, the urge to get hit during sex and the urge to talk about it in a Denny's full of black-t-shirted geeks are rather separate things. Also I've noticed that when you get a totally vanilla-identified person's pants off, roughly a third of the time they'll turn out to be into dominance and/or pain, whether they believe it's "that weird BDSM shit" or not.

This is unfortunate in some ways--information about safe and effective techniques doesn't get disseminated to unaffiliated kinksters, nor does the "you are not crazy, you do not need to repress this" message. (The Internet helps some, but it also spreads a shitload of misinformation.) A kinky person who doesn't know about the community is going to spend a lot of time reinventing the wheel. But it's inevitable and understandable that most people who like weird shit in the bedroom would have no desire to identify themselves with it anywhere else.

The kink community is cool in many ways, but they are not kink. For each person at a leather party or convention, there are ten at home alone or with their partner, just doing their thing. For good and ill, "how things are in Kinkland" concepts only apply in Kinkland, not everywhere bruises are traded.

A little ways back, a guy at a BDSM party (not Benny) wanted to play with me. Specifically, he said "I'm going to hit you until you safeword."

I kinda like the idea of playing say-Uncle, but using the actual safeword in a game weirds me out, and I'm curious if other people agree with this. To me, it's like saying "dinner is ready when the smoke alarm goes off"--it's at best inappropriate use of a safety device, at worst a guarantee that things will go too far.

I don't ever want to safeword. I shouldn't ever have to safeword; in a perfect world, tops would be perceptive enough to know when I was getting close to my limit and stop while I was still having fun. This isn't a perfect world and I don't hold it against anyone for having occasional lapses in their psychic abilities, so I'll safeword when I have to, but it's not part of the fun. In my view, safewording should be a big serious deal.

(Ultimately, I agreed to be hit until "yellow," but not "red." Just one of the geeky little delineations of this world.)

But I know people are all over the map on this issue, from nutballs who play without safewords because "I consented to not having consent any more" to people who use their safeword as a utilitarian control switch. Where do you stand?

Tuesday, September 22, 2009

Welp, I finally did it. Finally gave Benny the Fuck Off he's had coming for only about two years now. He'd gone from being an asshole but a great fuck, to being an asshole and a lousy fuck. And today he just crossed a line.

I feel a little bad. I don't like to lose people. Even horrible people! I've lost my only sure thing now.

But he had me tied up, he hurt me in an extremely not-fun way (trying to shove way-too-big things into me when I wasn't ready, FUCKING OW), I safeworded and he didn't care.

That's not quite fair to him. He cared some. He stopped within 30 seconds at the most. Then he tried again and I had to tell him "no, really, fucking red." to get him to stop for real. Then he left me tied up for a bit while he washed his hands and made fun of me and joked about "if you're tied up, you're at my mercy." Then I started screaming at him and he let me go. He tried to apologize for a bit (and I hung around to listen, because I'm a complete softy like that) but I was out of there pretty soon after.

Hey, maybe that's why I feel bad!

Bondage is like shooting, okay? (YESSS! I finally found a way to make this analogy! My circle as a sex/kink/guns/strained analogies blogger is COMPLETE!) You can have fun with it, you can laugh while you're doing it and you can play around with it in certain ways, but there are some rules that you must follow because there are areas where it stops being a game and intersects the Extremely Real World. You have a device that can actually kill people; you have a person who actually cannot move. Which is why it's never a joke to point a gun at someone's head, even if it isn't loaded; and it's never a joke to restrain or hurt a person against their will, even if it seems like you're just playing and it's not a big deal.

In a way I'm glad he did something so unambiguous. It made my decision easy. I can rationalize going back to someone who's just kind of a jerk; I can't very well go back to someone who's liable to give me an amateur episiotomy and think it's funny. (In another way I wonder if somehow I was ambiguous, if I somehow made it seem like I was up for another go or I was willing to joke around. But really now, in Kinkland, "red" is about the least ambiguous thing there is.)

So that's Benny. We had some times, no denying it. But after tonight, I'm pretty fucking glad we won't have any more.

Monday, September 21, 2009

My roommate has a big stack of fashion magazines in the bathroom, and each one has an article on "dressing for different body shapes." Fair enough, we're all unique flowers. But each section is about how to minimize your different body shape as much as possible. Big breasts need to be strapped down, small ones need to be propped up. If your ass is round draw attention upward, if your ass is flat draw attention downward. Short women need to look taller and tall women need to look shorter. Dammit, ladies, you've got to be average!

Just once I'd like to see something about emphasizing your differences. About how to actually flatter a big ass or flat chest, instead of trying to hide it. About how to be exactly the height and weight you are.

I went shopping for clothes the other day and I found a top I really liked, but the "large" was tight around the shoulders and they didn't stock an XL. So I decided, hey, see if they have the same thing in the plus-size section. I went to the "women's sizes" area, and... holy muumuus Batman! It was nothing but tents! Not just in the superlarge sizes, but even in an 18 the clothing had gone through some horrible metamorphosis from "fashion" to "modesty drape." Apparently once you get up to that size you're expected to give up on the min-maxing and just try to minimize your whole damn self.

(This isn't just fat-girl's-lament, either; I worked with a woman who was so tall and slender we called her "the giraffe" and she mostly wore men's clothing out of sheer desperation of finding anything to fit her--things that fit her waist didn't cover it, and things that covered her hung like tents. In her case it may have been statistical rarity more than societal expectations, but it's worth noting that InStyle magazine recommends tall women do not wear heels or close-fitted pant legs, that'd make them look tall.)

Men's clothing seems so linear. If you're bigger, wear bigger clothes, duhhh. (Also, they get "big and tall" stores, which is fairly descriptive, rather than having to be "kings" or "gentlemen" or some other batshit euphemism.) Women's clothing gotta play all these games.

I'm me. Big-bellied, small-chest-and-assed, short, broad-shouldered, me. I don't wish to be anyone else and I'll look best showing off what I do have, not putting on vertical stripes and a padded bra and hoping people are fooled into thinking I'm "normal."

And if you hear that description and think "but that body shape just doesn't look good uncorrected," I think we'll just have to agree to disagree.

Sunday, September 20, 2009

On the rare occasions when I do get street-harassed, I always get the urge to yell really weird things back. I feel like saying "HEY FUCK YOU" is admitting that it got to me and hurrying along in silence is letting the terrorists win, so the best way to keep my dignity is to come completely out of left field.

Friday, September 18, 2009

I'm a better lay than I was a year ago. I've gotten practice, I've learned a few new tricks, I've gotten more comfortable with myself, and I've gained a little bit of emotional maturity that makes me less likely to do obnoxiously needy or inconsiderate things in bed. And I'm a much, much better lay than I was five years ago. When I turned eighteen, I only had two years of sexual experience under my belt, and that sporadic and with clueless boys; I couldn't give a blowjob to save my life and I tended to go into "augh I shouldn't be here doing this" spazz attacks after sex.

As for physical aging, twenty-three's been pretty kind to me. I'm not exactly haggard; if anything I'm in slightly better shape because physical labor has put some muscle tone on me. I've also learned to dress and present myself less awkwardly. About the only "oldness" on me is simple adulthood; you can tell I'm not a kid, but I'm waayyyy too young for any negative aging.

So why is eighteen often seen as the stereotypically "sexy" age? (Because seventeen is illegal, duh.) Is the freshness of a kid sexier than anything they can actually do in bed? Innocent, in this context, is just another word for inexperienced. And not just wide-eyed "gee no one made me feel like this before mister" inexperience--more often it's fumbling, tooth-scraping, unlubricated, orgasmless inexperience. Good luck with the relationship, too; everyone has a few totally dysfunctional obssessive/avoidant immature relationships in them, and most of us get them out when we're about eighteen.

Eighteen-year-olds were great when I was eighteen, but I've moved on, and I'd rather fuck men. And that's at twenty-three; by the time I'm in my thirties or forties I can't imagine wanting more of those jabby fingers and confused "does this mean we're in love or does it mean she's a slut?" emotions. Plus I'd kinda feel like a creep.

Then again, I suppose being a creep is the only appeal for adults lusting after eighteen-year-olds in the first place. But if they actually want one, either they've never fucked a real eighteen-year-old, or they'be never fucked a really good thirty-five-year-old.

Wednesday, September 16, 2009

Not being depressed is, like not listening to neighbors' terrible music and not having a blister on your heel, one of the great negative joys in life. You only notice it by contrast, but man, what a contrast.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

I feel like my orgasms are getting stronger. Maybe it's just practice. But lately when I have sex it's like I'm fucking possessed. The first one takes a few minutes to work up to but after that, if things keep going, it's overwhelming. My muscles inside and out spasm hard, I'm utterly insensible to pain, hypersensitive to pleasure anywhere on my skin, and I have very little control over my body and mind. I've always had intense orgasms, but in the last few months I've had some that would be terrifying if they weren't the best thing ever.

And afterwards, I'm more spent than before, too. I've always tended to crash after sex but lately sometimes I just get utterly mentally and physically drained. Like can't-stand-up, can't-talk, can't-remember-things drained. Like I said, it's downright frightening.

This doesn't happen every time. Not every quick fall-asleep wank or friendly afternoon screw ends in insane thrashing and a post-ictal afterglow. But when someone works at it, when they really make an event out of the sex and take their time and hurt me a bit... I can go way, way over the edge.

Sometimes I sympathize with this Onion article in a weird way. I can come off so mousy in public, I worry that people would never suspect. I need to find a nice tasteful way of letting new friends know that I have mega-orgasms.

Monday, September 14, 2009

I'm the sort of person who'd rather have a few very close friendships than a lot of pals. I can have fun with a big social group, but I need a small circle of people I can really trust. And right now I feel like that circle is broken to shit. CC is gone, Danny has a girlfriend who doesn't want him associating with me, I've been single for more than a year, every member of my family has left this city, and so have 90% of my old friends. There's plenty of people I can go drinking with, a decent number I can fuck, but I'm counting on less than one hand the number I can cry to. And even with those few I worry that if I cry very much I'll be a needy burden and they'll get sick of me.

(I'm crying to you now, of course, and most of you aren't so close to me, but ah well, it's just the Internet, it's not for keepsies.)

This is temporary, it always is. When I was a teenager there were times I thought I'd be alone forever but I'm old enough now to know that isn't true. New people are always coming into my life and old ones sometimes surprise me. And when I really need to cry, instead of just emo-whine, more friends than I ever expected are there for me. As long as I'm willing to be a good and giving friend and lover myself, I know I'll get it returned in time. That's not blind faith, that's plain ol' pattern recognition.

Sunday, September 13, 2009

It's amazing how often I think I'm in an absolute pit of depression because my whole life is a pathetic failure, then I eat something nutritious or take a nap and I have perspective again. I'm like a toddler.

Anyway. Yesterday I participated in my second breast cancer walkathon this year. (I was a walker last time, staff this time.) I think it's a good cause, but I won't lie to ya, it's a weird atmosphere at those things. Everything's too pink, and everyone's a little... too happy. "WOO FIGHTING CANCER WOOOOO!" I don't like cancer either, and fundraisers should be fun, but medical research doesn't seem like a matter for "wooo," you know? Also the amount of money that comes in is freaking massive and it sorta creeps me out how opaque it is where it goes. I'm not accusing them of impropriety (the Susan G. Komen foundation spends 87% of funds on programs), just of vagueness--I wish they would say what is being done to "fight" cancer. They make it sound like we're paying a guy to run out and punch tumors. Or the degree of cutesy pinkness reaches the overload point until you think you're donating for the promotion and spread of pink itself.

Still, better to help a basically-worthy cause than to sit on the sidelines bitching. Isn't that right, Twisty? I don't want to be too harsh on this one because she is a breast cancer survivor herself, but mocking women who get breast reconstruction and cover their hair loss? Daaamn. Also, a nice bit of tinhattery about "they want you to get cancer and they want you to think treatment is easy because that's how they make their money!" (Apparently none of Them have breasts of their own or care about anyone who does.)

And then the comments are largely about how encouraging patients to fight is unfairly suggesting that surviving cancer is somehow "better" that dying from cancer, and assigning that kind of value judgement is very patriarchal.

I wish there was this kind of turnout for other cancers, though. I'd like to hold a 5000-person rally for colorectal cancer prevention and treatment. Brown banners and ribbons everywhere, "Save the assholes" t-shirts, chirpy hand-drawn posters of anuses that are also smiley faces, kids handing out brown lemonade with extra fiber. We'd be doing good and having fun!

Friday, September 11, 2009

I'm always afraid to give true wake-up blowjobs because I worry the guy will accidentally pee in my mouth. I always have to wake him up some other way and only start the blowjob once I'm certain he's coherent. Otherwise I worry it's a little too much like putting his hand in a glass of warm water.

Thursday, September 10, 2009

Two things that don't happen to me all the time, but happen often enough to annoy:

1) At work, people observing that I'm a "woman driver." Which I guess means they have some doubt that I have the physical strength to operate a steering wheel and the mechanical aptitude to know that pushing down on the gas means go faster. Or maybe just that I'll be distracted by my nails or my period at a critical moment.

Ugh, I'm not Twisty, I know they aren't literally thinking any of these things, they're usually just kinda bemused by the novelty and joke factor of a woman behind the wheel. Like if you saw a dog driving. You don't think ill of the dog, you just have to comment.

2) People online discovering that I'm a girl, knowing nothing else about me, and immediately approaching me for hot cybersex. Really? Not that I'm always against hot cybersex, but it takes something more than the amazing discovery that we have different genders. Do you do this at the supermarket?

I'm still not Twisty, but it bothers me tremendously when I run into people talking as if "woman" was a synonym for "sexy person." That the presence of girls was both unusual and sexual, all in itself. Like people amused by "woman drivers," these people aren't the majority and they don't dominate society, but god they're obnoxious chucklefucks.

In both cases the weird common factor is people acting like women are way, way less than 50% of the population. I suppose it was true on the roads in the 1950s and the Internet in the early 90s, but times they have a-changed. At this point, there's no excuse for not getting with the program.

"Do you want it all night?"...No, an hour or two would be exciting but I think eight would be very tiring and painful.

"Are you a filthy little slut?"...Well, yes, but I'm also a writer and a jewelry maker and a hiker, and I don't appreciate being categorized by only one of my hobbies, you're being very reductive, sir.

I understand the fantasy value of the superlatively sexual partner who is nothing but bottomless vagina and 24-7 sex, but I'm not that fantasy. I'm sex and a whole person too. And even during sex, even when I know it's just filthy nothings, I have trouble pretending that I'm not.

Sunday, September 6, 2009

Pink cover! Megan Fox! That woman looks different in every picture of her, it's weird! I like her dress except that it's bikini-wax-required short and I don't see how she could sit down in it! Best headline: "The Sexy Ass Workout"! I thought they would have to say "butt"!

Men don't like to acknowledge when they're upset, but if your guy's face briefly crumples up, that's a sign of sadness or disappointment. Watch for furrows that form above his nose and extend to the outer corners of his eyes as well as eyebrows that scrunch together and lift at the inner corners.Yes, and, if his lips curl upward and he shows his teeth it's a sign of happiness or amusement among us humans. Truly, we are fascinating creatures. But tell me more about your kind--what are the tentacles for?

And there's a whole article that's nothing but celebrities' Twitter posts selected at utter random. I guess the layout came up a little short.

"Like most female animals, women are hardwired to want a mate who can provide for their offspring," [supposed expert] says. "You may not even want children, but unconsciously, this is a trait you'll still be drawn to." So when you're checking out a guy's designer clothes, as 74 percent of you do, you're really instinctually sussing out his resources. "It's a biological ritual that's millions of years old," says [expert].Designer clothes are not millions of years old. (Are they? "Ohmigosh! You wear Og style loincloth! Real mammoth hide! That so hot!") Maybe conceptions of physical attractiveness are somewhat innate, but you're not going to have a goddamn "instinct" to analyze for walletability. If you find yourself mentally pricing a guy's outfit with great fascination, that's all you, honey.

Think of the naughtiest trick you've ever tried in bed. Now imagine bumping up the intensity so that it was even ballsier. Pretty. Freakin'. Hot.Not really. The naughtiest trick I ever tried (and man, I have no idea what that even would be, I don't own a naughtyometer) was as far as I was willing to go. Bumping up the intensity would mean something I wasn't comfortable with. I'm not bound by inhibition or lack of creativity but by actual limits.

Lie on the bed with your hands tied together, and let him devour you. Have him start with a tease by holding his first and second fingers in a V, placing them on either side of your clitoris, and massaging in a scissoring motion. Then he can use side-to side motions with his tongue to get you even more worked up.This article is seriously topping from the bottom. I don't know "I want to be the helpless damsel being devoured" goes with "now I insist you follow these detailed orders on exactly how to do it."

...Hmm, maybe Cosmo understands kink more than I give them credit for.

Have him tie your hands with a scarf and hang them on a hook on his door (the kind you would hang your coat or towel on) before he tantalizes you with oral.Ooh, here's a fun activity you can try at home: stand with your back to a door and raise your arms high over your head. Now spread your legs far enough to allow cunnilingus. Don't rip the hook out! Don't fall on your ass!

(To be fair, I think this might work if you lift only one leg and brace it on a wall, furniture, or his shoulder. It still doesn't lack for awkwardness though.)

At the end of this activity, rapidly locate a pair of scissors or a sharp knife, because after you've hung near-bodyweight on a knot in a scarf, you're never getting that puppy untied.

Moves That Cross the Line72% of guys would not be turned on if their girl spanked them with a paddle....73% of guys would not be turned on if their girl dripped hot wax over their chest.28% ain't bad. These aren't moves that cross the line, these are moves you should ask about rather than just suddenly pulling out a candle and flinging wax about. I don't know if it's still a "move" when it's a negotiated activity, but it's a hell of a lot more likely to go well.

A husky voice is seductive since it reminds guys of sex. When you're aroused, testosterone rises, deepening your timber.Timbre. And testosterone does deepen a person's voice--irreversibly, over the course of months, by physically growing their larynx. Unless you develop an Adam's apple when you get turned on (and likely also a beard), it's not the testosterone at work there.

Q:This may sound weird, but I hate it when my boyfriend compliments me during sex. Like, he'll say my O face is really hot, but that just makes me self-conscious. Or he'll say that he loves grabbing my butt, but he'll do so in a way that makes it sound big. Can I somehow train him to compliment me in different ways?A: Good Lord, get over yourself. I'm sure you're coming from a place of genuine anguish here and all that, but do you realize what you sound like, complaining that you're not getting the right kind of compliments? I prescribe three months of not getting complimented at all; should give you some perspective.

Q: My boyfriend often asks my permission to do things in bed, and I hate it! I want him to take charge and get creative, so how can I convince him to boink outside the box?A: [...] If you want your guy to "boink outside the box," you need to let him know he has an all-access pass to... well, the inside of the box.But he doesn't. Not many people, and definitely not many Cosmo girls, hand out all-access passes. This girl doesn't want him to boink outside the box, she wants him to boink in a slightly larger box, and she wants him to psychically divine how big that box is because she can't be arsed to tell him.

[Positions that project power and confidence] Clasp your hands behind your back. This displays your most sensitive zones (neck, chest) in a way that says "I don't need protective cover."Yes, but it also says "I'm like a meek little girl." Ideally you'd also go a bit knock-kneed during this power position and maybe giggle shyly.

A teeny white lie won't really hurt anyone. And isn't the minor pang of guilt worth saving you some cash? Your magic words: "Oh, it's my birthday." ... You could use them at a restaurant or bar to score a free appetizer or celebratory glass of wine or cocktail. Mention it at your favorite bakery and you could walk out with a gifted cupcake. Or try casually dropping that it's your special day as you're checking into a nice hotel--maybe you'll find a fruit basket waiting for you in your room.Jesus, that's low. It's not that the things you get are so valuable or things the businesses couldn't part with--but you're abusing the shit out of human goodwill. People give you stuff on your birthday (sometimes spontaneously and out of their own pockets) because they want to make it a special day for you, and you're treating them like suckers.

Find a half-finished beer in a brown bottle--like Budweiser--and sneak into the bathroom. Fill the bottle the rest of the way with lukewarm water and saunter back to the bar. Tell the overworked bartender that the beer you got was warm--on a busy night, beer is racing in and out of coolers fast enough that it's totally possible--and ask for another. He'll be so busy with the rest of the crowd that he'll slip you a new one, no questions asked.Seriously, Cosmo, what the fuck is wrong with you?

Knowing what'll impress a guy isn't always easy. You could spend $200 on a haircut, highlights, and a blowout and he won't even notice. Meanwhile, ha can't stop raving about the time his buddy cooked a T-bone on the radiator of his Dodge Ram.That is kind of awesome though. I had some friends who were on a road trip and managed to cook a container of Jiffy Pop by hanging it out the back window on a rope. The friction on the asphalt heated up the little frying pan enough to pop all the corn. That's way more impressive than some lady who went to an overpriced salon.

"I dated a guy with serious stubble--he always left my face raw. The scabs from kissing him lasted for days."SCABS? Jesus!

[Quiz question:] A first date cancels without explanation an hour before you've planned to meet up. How do you respond?[The "correct" answer:] C. Feel a little down, but give him a rain check to call you another time.Um, no. With a good explanation, maybe, everyone has scheduling disasters sometimes. No explanation, an hour ahead? Either he's not interested in you, he's playing some weird game, or he's an enormous flake. None of those merits a second chance.

Saturday, September 5, 2009

Wow, crazy week has been crazy. And I don't mean "we're gonna need you to stay til 8" crazy, I mean haz-mat and FBI and things catching on fire crazy. And someone tried to bite me but only managed to rip off part of my jacket in her teeth. Like a shark. But enough dull shop talk.

LabRat sent me this article, which contains so many weird misconceptions and false analogies that I started going through it in my usual italics/snark manner until I gave up after writing several thousand words and realizing I was still on the first page of three.

Short version: People aren't animals, animals often aren't even animals when it comes to stereotypical dominance hierarchies, men's success shouldn't require women's failure, and the author's planet does not comprehend the strange human concept we call "love."

(Oh, and gay people don't exist. Gay people never exist in this kind of article. Poly people neither and in a weird way, contentedly single people least of all.)

But there was one thing I wanted to address because I've seen this same idea several places, feminist and non: ...the overwhelmingly female-staffed professions of education and health care have been relatively insulated... some economics experts think that women are better suited to the new "knowledge economy," in which such traits as sensitivity, intuition, and collaboration are valued over typically Alpha jockeying-for-power games.

Women don't become teachers and nurses because we're fuzzy-wuzzy soft touches for the adorable kiddies and sickies. (And anyone who thinks there aren't elaborate and vicious power games in education and healthcare hasn't spent enough time in either system.) We don't take those jobs because we're super good at niceness and whatever "intuition" is supposed to mean. Sometimes we take them because they're sort of traditionally female roles so it's easier for us to get hired and fit in, but that's not even the main reason.

What do teaching and nursing really have in common? They have flexible hours. Teachers work school hours and get the summer off; nurses are in high demand and every institution has a different weird scheduling system so nurses have a lot of choice in what hours they work. And both jobs, being part of massive institutions, tend to come with decent benefits.

And all this matters because women are much more likely to be the primary caregivers for children. The nurses I've worked with weren't there because of some uniquely feminine love of healing; they were there because they could get a shift that didn't start until their husband got home to watch the kids, or that ended before the afterschool programs did.

My own job is about 80% male. Is this because it's action-oriented, physically demanding, sometimes scary, and requires operating a big clunky truck? Not really. It's because none of the shifts are compatible with caring for young children and the pay is too low to afford childcare. (Unless you have a partner who can cover for you, which is more and more often the case. But that's what this article would call the terrible decline of the alpha male.)

Of course women can be sensitive, of course we can enjoy taking care of people. But so can men. It's not like male nurses are hopelessly gruff or female nurses can't be huge jerks (try coming to the ER at 3 AM with a complaint of "I've had a sorta scratchy throat for the last two weeks" and see how much you get nurtured). The reason there are more "alpha males" than females isn't in our fuzzyhuggy instincts; it's because power-gaming pack-dominant brave-hunter men are less likely to need to get off work before little Timmy gets home.

The idea of people getting sterilized young gives me the heebie-jeebies. I have no problem with people not having kids, of course, but committing to it in your early twenties seems like a bad idea. A lot changes in life. When you're that young you just don't know how your circumstances or your partner or even your own beliefs might change over time. In the last five years, I can trace my own progression from snide liberal to snide libertarian, and from reluctant Jew to snotty atheist to eclectic pantheist. If you told me at 18 that someday I was going to own guns and sometimes vote Republican, I would've told you to fuck off. And if you handed me a paper to sign giving all my future votes to the Democrats, in perpetuity... I might have signed it.

I'm going to change more in my future. Right now I think I want kids but not until I'm in my thirties, or somehow "established" in a home, relationship, and career. I may change my mind. I may never have kids; not getting sterilized is hardly a commitment to breed, after all. Whatever happens, I may--no, I will--be a different person in the future. I don't want to destroy something that may turn out to be very important to Future Holly.

I also worry about the influence of the whole "childfree" movement, which is a freaky, freaky thing. It's this loose Internet society of people who don't want kids. But since it would be boring to sit around going "how's it going? still no kids? me either. good deal." all day, it warps into this weird vicious circlejerk in which they hate kids and hate parents and love abortion and love joking about horrible things happening to children. And of course they also love sterilization. And childfree-ers who get sterilized get the accolade of the community and get to feel like they really belong to the movement and they're living their ideals.

And then they grow out of it, right on schedule like they grew out of the Harry Potter communities, and they don't get their reproductive systems back. I don't think everyone who doesn't want kids "grows out of it," of course, but I think childfree-pride flag-wavers do. Or god, I hope they do.

I'm going to be a lot of different people, and they all have to share one uterus. It's only common decency not to mess it up.

EDIT: I'm going to do something unprecedented on the Internet and change my mind. People have the right to do any damnfool thong they want to their bodies, and it's not the medical establishment's job to make reproductive decisions for patients. However, I still think it's a very bad idea for a very young person with no medical problems to be sterilized.

Also I still think capital-C Childfree people are bugnuts. Although now I'm a little afraid to say that because those crazy fucks love them some online harassment. Just keep it online, kids.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

I have two guinea pigs. (They are CUTE little FUZZIES and I LOVE them. Just FYI.) Sometimes they hump. This bothers me a bit, partly because they're sisters, and mostly because the one being humped generally doesn't like it. The humpee doesn't panic or anything, it's clearly not a major violation, but she's annoyed. She'll make angry noises and she'll wiggle out from under.

And somehow it offends my sexual mores that they insist on acting like the humper is the "winner" and the humpee is the "loser." I never see a piggy happily offering herself for humping. (I often see them humping each other from the wrong end, but to be fair, both ends of a guinea pig do look pretty similar.) They're both female, yet they see the male role as desirable, as the one that brings dominance and/or pleasure.